Competitive – Mana Tutors

BLACK DETH

DETH’S SERVANT

So, I haven’t been playing a ton of legacy lately as I was spending a good portion of my magic time preparing for the limited portion of GP Vegas. However, the last time I did I was able to turn a few heads with an even CRAZIER brew of DETH. For those of you that are in “the know”, read on, for those of you that are soon to be in “the know,” this link is for you. I shall attempt to impart a modicum of wisdom here with the hope that you come away from this enlightened, excited, and above all else, ready to play some DETH’s Servant. What is DETH’s Servant? Well, for an in depth conversation about this deck, the card choices, an overview of the matchups, sideboard and a whole lot of laughs, I would first advise you to listen to Leaving a Legacy . Jerry Mee and Pat Euglow invited me to come on the show to highlight this particular list. I did, and it was awesome. Have you listened to it yet? I’ll wait…

Here is the link again. I’m not messing around, you’re going to want to check out that podcast.

Okay, I think it’s safe to assume that by now you’ve checked out the origin story and listened to the podcast. We’re now prepared to dive into the depths of DETH. Today’s dive will include the changes I made and why, mulligan decisions and general sideboarding strategies.

THE ADDITIONS

Why did I add a fourth combo? Well, aside from my bottomless need for attention, there were also a couple of other legitimate reasons. First and foremost: what I learned in my initial build was that the more combos I added, the better the deck seemed to get. Keeping this in mind, I decided to add yet another combo and see if the trend continued in a linear fashion or started to pass the apex of the theoretical combo parabola.

X axis = number of combos

Y axis = deck performance

The first league I played I was able to secure a 5-0. This continues to suggest that the graph on the bottom is, in fact, the correct one. So, it follows that, if I could conceivably cram an infinite number of combos into a 60 card deck, I would never lose. I am currently working on this theorem, and feel I am close to a breakthrough.

The next reason has to do with decks that tax. Eldrazi and Taxes, Death and Taxes, Death and Taxes and Taxes (this is when you are actively being audited by your D&T opponent),lands, mono red prison, you get the idea. Essentially, I wanted a cheaper combo that wouldn’t be as punished by cards like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or Thorn of Amethyst. I also wanted a viable way to win the game if my opponent resolved a Gaddock Teeg game one with a Wasteland up (which happens more frequently than one might think). Additionally, having another two card combo that can potentially win the game on the spot helps even out the Sneak and Show match up. Your opponent now has to gamble with Show and Tell if you have even one of the following cards in play: Painter’s Servant, Grindstone, Leyline of the Void, or Helm of Obedience.

The other addition that I made was Echo of Eons as a one of in the main deck. My reasoning for this doesn’t amount to much more than these two reasons and in this exact order: I thought it was cool. Second, I found that in match ups where my opponent thwarted my turn two kill and was grinding me down, I did not have a way to bounce back into the game effectively. I see my Echo of Eons as the fourth quarter Hail Mary against these long game strategies. However, it is also quite good against any deck that has minimal interaction on your turn. Does it get stuck in my hand sometimes? Absolutely. This, however, brings me back to the number one reason I decided to run it, which is that it is in fact, very cool. Not much on this Earth beats waiting until your opponent is tapped out, playing your hand, drawing 7, playing another hand and usually just winning on the spot.

The last change that I made was cutting two duress for two Inquisition of Kozilek. This was mostly due to a drastic shift in the meta. I was playing against delvers and True Name-Nemesis quite frequently. I wanted a way to strip early pressure out of my opponent’s hand to allow the deck to draw into its win conditions. The downside to this change is, of course, that inquisition does not hit Force of Will, which is often a primary target.

MULLIGAN DECISIONS

With any deck your starting hand and the decisions you make to keep or mull are extremely important. It is no different here, in fact, I believe it is even more important. It is also a little more complex than most linear decks. There are hands that are easy to keep, of course. For instance, when you have a turn one kill or a turn two kill, no problem.

This is a turn one kill and an example of those easy keeps I mentioned above. On the play in game one, my approach is to always jam. You will get blown out by Force of Will from time to time, but you will win way more often. Sadly, most of the time you will not have a turn one or even turn two kill. Which hands you decide to keep depends greatly on what you are playing against, which makes your game one decisions even more crucial.

When you play with a linear deck, your deck does a thing, let’s call it X. When you draw a hand if you think your hand will allow you do X it is a keep, if it does not do X then it is a mulligan. DETH differs from this in the sense that it is looking to do W,X,Y, or Z. So, when you draw a hand does none of those things it does not mean you should mulligan those hands 100% of the time. For example, if we think of Leyline/Helm and Painter/Servant, Depths and Stage/Hexmage as two card combos and LED/Ritual/Tutor as a three card combo we can assess our hands in valuations. For instance, here is a sample hand that I kept in the blind against an opponent game one.

This hand I can look at as ⅔ x and ½ y, or ⅔ storm and ½ depths. What this means is that on my first draw of the game I can draw 12 cards that will complete one of these combos(all copies of LED, Ritual, Stage, Hexmage, and Plunge into Darkness). That is nearly 25%. The disruption can slow down my opponent and help set up my win. This hand is especially nice because you have a back up plan, go all-in with Depths. It also has potential versatility. If I cast Thoughtseize and I see my opponent is sitting on Wasteland and Knight of the Reliquary I will be looking to complete my storm combo. I may play out my Depths to bait their Wasteland to buy another draw free of pressure and clear the way for my lake of the dead. As it panned out, this particular opponent was playing UW control and I was able to strip away meaningful cards turn one and two and use Infernal Tutor discarding my hand to LED for Hexmage to attack for 20 on turn 4.

This hand may be an obvious keep as it contains ½ Helm combo, full Depths combo and ⅓ storm combo. I am only including it here to discuss the power starting with Leyline in play. Not only do we have a good aggressive plan, but beginning the game with Leyline of the Void in play enables much of our deck to function at a much higher efficiency (It is also noteworthy to mention that simply by starting with a Leyline in play you will receive a concession in roughly 4-5 percent of your game ones). Even if one or both Depths and Stage were swamps, I would likely keep this hand, especially in game one. Leyline of the Void enables our Ill-gotten Gains as well as our Helms and turns them into “your opponent exiles their hand and you get three sweet cards back from your graveyard.” Even if you get your Helm of Obedience surgically extracted you can still storm off without fear of the FOW once you resolve your first Ill-gotten Gains. As it turned out, this game actually ended on turn three with another 20/20. Let’s look at one more example.

This is a hand I would ship back. It only has ⅓ storm. If I knew that I was playing against storm, I would probably keep this, but game one, I would mulligan.

Hopefully this gives you an idea of how I evaluate hands with DETH. It is built in such a way (that is without brainstorms, ponders, or any efficient cantrip) to maximize the value of the top card of your deck. So, if you’re starting hand doesn’t have the win in it, but has varied pieces of your combos, do not despair. As George Michael would tell you, “you gotta have faith.”

SIDEBOARDING

“You must do what you feel is right, of course.”

Obi Wan Kenobi

Sideboarding with DETH can be a tricky endeavor. There are a few certainties, but many more uncertainties. For example, against control, I will always bring in Hymn to Tourach. Against elves I will always bring in Toxic Deluge. Against Mono red Prison I will always bring in Phyrexian Obliterator. Aside from these type of examples the rest of my sideboarding strategy is greatly dependent upon what happened game one and two. This differs from many sideboard strategies in the sense that I don’t necessarily do the same thing match to match, or even game to game. For instance, if I beat my opponent game one with my Dark Depths combo and they only see cards that could viably be in Turbo Depths, I may lean away from that strategy in game two(especially if they have Wasteland and Karakas), anticipating that my opponent will side heavily into stopping that particular win condition. If I happen to storm out my opponent game one, I might side out my storm combo completely and lean into my Painter/Grindstone combo with Obliterators for back up. It is a game of cat and mouse. Against control I may side out three or all of my lotus petals on the draw as I want my cards all to impact the game state in a meaningful way, where as I may bring them in on the play in an attempt to win before they can develop their board. My best advice is to think about the game that was just played and consider these factors:

What combo did I win with (if you won)?
What cards did my opponent see (if you lost)?
What combo is my opponent’s deck most vulnerable to?
What strategy are they likely to take against me?
What do they expect that I will do?

It’s important to remember that as difficult as it can be to sideboard with DETH, it is also difficult to sideboard against. The benefit of having four distinctive modes to victory is that many of the strategies do not share sideboard cards. Your opponent’s strategy versus storm and Painter/Grindstone, for example, are not going to share many cards. Make the best decisions you can with the information you gathered during game one and remember that your opponent has some difficult choices to make as well.

CLOSING REMARKS

That’s the crash course on DETH’s Servant. If you have any questions or remarks please feel free to ask below in the comment section. You can also find me on Twitter @traswidden and I am traswidden on twitch.

The Last Hogaak Guide: How to Gaak in Vegas

Gaak / Gaak’d [Verb][i] Informal : To Abuse graveyard synergies in conjunction with Vengevine and/or Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis to create an Obscene amount of power in a single turn; usually between 12 and 20, spread across 3 – 7 creatures. In Conjunction: Got Gaak’d; Gaak’d em, getting Gaak’d.

I cast a Nihil Spellbomb on my first turn and still got Gaak’d.

Force of Vigor allowed me to Gaak on my turn 2 while removing their leyline on turn 1

Magic Fest Las Vegas is the largest tournament in North America every year. Featuring 2 main events, a handful of unique and Vegas-exclusive events, dozens of artists, cosplayers, and more, Magic in Sin City is always one for the books. This year’s Modern main event will almost certainly be the last chance you have to cast Hogaak, the Arisen Necropolis , which you should if your intentions are to take it down.

I don’t feel that I need to convince anyone on Hogaak’s power…but just in case you don’t fully understand all the reasons why this deck should not exist:

Hogaak is the first modern deck we have seen in a long time that is both doing the most powerful, consistent thing and can shove through most sideboard cards. The shell of 14+ spells that bin multiple cards at a time mean that “soft hate” cards like Nihil Spellbomb , Ravenous Trap , and Surgical Extraction are low impact. Similar to flashback spells, cards like Gravecrawler and Hogaak really take advantage of how priority works by not granting the opponent a window to take action between entering and leaving the graveyard. Half the time I see a Ravenous Trap in a Phoenix player’s hand, it either does not come online until it is too late or punishes a loose Hogaak player that could have given up 1-2 power or sequenced better to play around it.

When Nihil Spellbomb and Scavenging Ooze end up not being enough to check the graveyard, most decks have no choice but to play a “hard hate” graveyard card like Leyline of the Void, Rest in Peace , or Yixlid Jailer . Normally this is needed as at least a 4-of if not more through a split between hard and soft hate because of how you basically need you board card in your opening hand. The resilience of Hogaak to soft hate allows the deck to only worry about hard hate. As a result the deck can play the best possible answers to these cards and simply ignore basically everything else.

Force of Vigor is one of the most powerful cards for green, proactive strategies that Modern has ever seen. This 0 mana play not only answers a Turn 1 leyline, but multiple Leylines. Picking off an additional board card or trinket such as an Aether Vial or Expedition Map can be quite impactful since most decks are required to keep anemic hands that contain lands and a sideboard card. Everything about this card is insane; costing 0 mana rather than 1 is more of a difference than you might think. Forcing a Leyline in response to a Turn 1 Thoughtseize is one of the many spots where this card outperforms previous options like Nature’s Claim . This is not a factor on the play of course, but the 1 mana can quite often be the difference from Gaaking on turn 2 and turn 3. Finally this card functions as multiple removal spells in board games against prison and chalice strategies. Converting this and an extra Satyr Wayfinder into an answer to multiple bridges on turn 4 onward is something unique that most playable board cards cannot do. Force of vigor has not existed long enough to prove its merit outside of this deck, but it has great applications in big mana decks like Amulet, Titanshift, and Tron as an answer to blood moon that does not require a basic.

Some people really do not want to lose to Hogaak and play either an excessive amount of hate or just jam 4 Leyline where you would not expect to see it. Although you could board in Force of Vigor against Humans and Storm as a hedge, the deck’s engine is close to a mediocre zoo deck on stats alone. Most hands with multiple Gravecrawlers and a Lightning Axe can normally cross the finish line by themselves when against a mountain of grave hate or see all your payoff creatures stripped by a few Surgical Extractions. In some matchups like UW control and Red Prowess, zoo beats becomes your primary game plan. Celestial Colonnade decks have a very hard time dealing with recurring threats; Hogaak and Vengevine basically serve as a Spellskite to protect your Gravecrawlers and Bloodghasts from Path to Exile . Similarly Mono-Red Phoenix and Prowess can have up to 4 Surgical Extractions and can be raced when either they run out of creatures or draw too many cards that do not affect the board.

I had the pleasure to cast Hogaak at Mythic Championship Barcelona this summer and played against Leyline of the Void decks in 7 of my 10 matches. Out of those 7 I went 4-3 and won a total of 4 games having never attacked with a Hogaak or Vengevine. One of these losses were a result of my opponent missing their second land drop until turn 4 but a normal graveyard deck like Dredge really has no way to capitalize on something like that if they open with an unanswered board card. Carrion Feeder can get big. Wayfinder helps you cast Vengevine which on an open board hits hard. Gravecrawler is a Savannah lion with upside. This is an Aggro-Combo deck at its core and can execute either plan very well.

The List:

Here’s What I would play at Vegas this weeekend

Disclaimer: At least 30 of the spell slots are consensus in most lists, leaving 10 up in the air. I would advise you not to put too much weight on a particular list doing well since the 10 flex slots are most likely not what won the pilot most of their games. You could probably 3-2 or 4-1 a league if you put 10 cards from your last Modern Horizons draft in these slots. That being said, after playing a few hundred matches with a dozen or so configurations and consulting with a few friends I trust, I feel very confident in my choices.

The Core:

Almost every list begins with these 32 cards and I would not try to cut any of these. Some of these get worse post board but in a world where everyone and their mother is playing Leyline of the Void you are almost always boarding in 6+ cards. It is important to remember that you are playing the strongest and most consistent deck legal (somehow) in Modern. This means that if both you and your opponent execute their gameplan, gaaking will likely go over the top.

The Flex Slots:

2 Golgari Thug – Yes this card is Terrible most matchups after game 1. That’s ok. As mentioned before this deck boards a lot of cards in a lot of matchups. I dismissed this card forever in my testing and did not end up playing it in Barcelona. I initially thought this card was a velocity card until I played with it. Thug actually functions as a consistency slot and is comparable to a 5th and 6th wayfinder that you can actually find from a wayfinder. I thought Thug would only be good in the mirror because it allows you to consistently recast Hogaak after they trade off. As mentioned before, if you can successfully Gaak there’s almost nothing playable in modern that will stop you game 1. After turn 3, most spots you would draw a Satyr Wayfinder given the option; this is exactly that, a 2 mana 1/1 that mills 4 cards. Most hands or flips containing a Thug have a near-guarantee that you can Gaak by the third turn.

3 Insolent Neonate – Anyone that tells you this card is bad or does nothing has likely not tested it for themselves. Neonate functions as a pseudo Mishra’s Bauble , having mana small effects and synergies that add up to a well deserved slot. Most game 1s Neonate serves as a cycling Show and Tell , putting a Bloodghast, Vengevine, or Hogaak into play from your hand. Neonate also bins a convenient 5 cards in conjunction with Golgari Thug and helps you reach a critical mass of discard outlets.

Burn and Mono-Red Phoenix are extremely popular choices right now because of how well they can punish Hogaak when they miss on their flips and lootings and can burn you out before you untap with your 16 power of Hogaak, Vengevines, and x/1s . Neonate absorbing a chump block on a prowess creature, similar to Sakura Tribe-Elder , can often be the difference between untapping and not. Postboard elsewhere, Neonate is a proactive play to make on turn 1 when you expect to cast either a Trophy or Force of Vigor on turn 2.

20 Lands / Dryad Arbor – I think of this more as a 19 Land deck, counting Dryad Arbor as a spell. It’s nice to have a third fetchable green source but the “land count” in this deck really refers to your black source count. Dryad Arbor Really does it all. At surface value this card lets your fetches convoke Hogaak and surprises a counter on carrion feeder. I played Dryad Arbor in my list in Barcelona, which was an open decklist event, and the card still proved worthy without the surprise element. Most matches postboard are about sticking a hogaak through whatever hate the opponent may have; Dryad arbor allows your fetches to count for 2 mana towards Hogaak as opposed to 1 which is very relevant when functioning on low resources.

Because of how priority works in magic Arbor’s presence alone puts the opponent into awkward spots anytime you fetch with a creature in play. This leads to great exchanges for you such as bolting/pushing gravecrawlers and stitcher’s suppliers just to avoid getting Gaak’d. Anyone who has played Bogles or Infect probably understands all the additional value the card such as converting useless fetches (hello Satyr Wayfinder) and a timely chump block or ambush attacker on a planeswalker. Arbor’s presence also allows you to set up specific plays or traps or scenarios. One example of this is where you fetch against a Spellbomb or Crypt; If they do not respond you Gaak them and if they do you get a normal land and play a Supplier or Wayfinder to gaak them anyways.

Dryad Arbor does have a cost of playing less black fetches. If this is something you are worried about, you can play a 2/2 split of Wooded Foothills and Bloodstained Mire.

3 Lightning Axe, No Assassin’s Trophy – Similar to Neonate, Axe helps reach a critical mass of discard outlets while being both a proactive and reactive play. Humans will definitely be a top 3 deck at Vegas and Axe can win you a race, save your looting from a Kitesail Freebooter , or kill a Phantasmal Image on Hogaak. When Lightning Axe is a dead card it has a floor of either popping your suppliers or saving a creature from Path to Exile , none of which Assassin’s Trophy can do. When Trophy is bad it is quite Anemic. The drawback of ramping your opponent in game 1 is much more real than in a postboard game and can often allow a deck like Tron to go over the top of you. Having outs to Ensnaring Bridge game 1 in theory sounds nice but is such a rarity when it wins you the game. Casting Trophy on a bridge cast by a Karn often buys you a single attack since you are ramping the ramp deck as well as bringing them much closer to Karn-Lattice lock, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon , All is Dust , etc. Lightning Axe can also be cast on turn 2 in conjunction with a hogaak in some hands.

Also, have you seen this guy’s face?

He doesn’t look afraid to me. Remember you are the boogeyman of the format, not some deck playing basic Wastes or Arcum’s Astrolabe .

The scope of cards this deck cares about in game 1 is just not enough to justify a clunky card you actively do not want to draw in the majority of spots.

What I Would Not Play:

MD:

Hedron Crab – Playing with this card feels great. Most times you cast it with a fetch you flip a bunch of cards and feel like your deck is working perfectly. But then you look down at your board. You see a Steam Vents you fetched out on turn 1, you see a Gravecrawler it cannot cast. You see a satyr wayfinder and your other land is a Blood Crypt. You have a Hogaak and 2 Vengevines that crabby boy found you…but you just can’t bring them into play. Crab is very good in the mirror game 1 like thug but has a much larger cost. Warping your manabase for a 1 drop that you actively want to board out makes your red match up significantly worse. Unlike supplier and Wayfinder, Hedron Crab only performs at a playable level on turn 1 or 2 and is a pretty abysmal topdeck. Many of the games where crab looks like a great card are games you would likely win because you registered Hogaak in modern.

Altar of Dementia – This fits somewhere between Hedron Crab and Assassin’s Trophy where the games you win via mill are either games you were going to win without it and the games you are not are so slim that it is hard to justify a slot. Without bridge it’s hard to call the self mill value enough to want over simply a Golgari Thug or Wayfinder.

Cryptbreaker / Lotleth Troll – Both of these cards are more or less sideboard cards that cannot really justify a board slot and end up in the main. Having the effect of a near indestructible slammer against jund is very nice or a howling mine when under ensnaring bridge or a mirror. The issue with playing these 2 is that they are cards you not only want to board out most of the time but just don’t want to draw in most game 1s. If I mulligan to 6 and see one of these, I’m almost always shipping it to the bottom or wishing I put a different card in my deck. Cryptbreaker also requires a boardstate where drawing a card is worth more than 5 damage and Lotleth Troll is just not a Modern power level card on its own.

Leyline of the Void – Leyline main is TERRIBLE outside of open decklists: half the time you find this on a mulligan you have to bottom this or save it to bin to looting. This made much more sense when it also protected your Bridge from Below.

Darkblast – I did not include this in my list but I think this is a very reasonable card to play. Wrenn and Six has pushed many creatures this answers out of the meta but the card is very strong in the mirror. Before Turn 2 Darkblast can prevent a Hogaak from going on the stack and afterwards allows yours to eat theirs in combat.

SB:

Shenanigans – This card would be a consideration if Force of Vigor did not come out in the same set. I’ve already made my point about Force so I won’t repeat myself.

Fatal Push – This is in theory a good sideboard card, however most creatures we can simply ignore or save a Lightning Axe / Trophy for. It’s hard to justify a slot for creature removal when the most impactful board cards from creature decks are non-creatures.

The Sideboard:

Similar to the Maindeck, I feel you really only need 10 of the 15 slots for the deck to function, those being the middle and right-hand column above of

4 Leyline of the Void – All that really matters in postboard games is resolving Hogaak First. Play 4 of this.

3 Force of Vigor – See above, this card is the best card in the sideboard.

3 Assassin’s Trophy – Trophy being a catch-all is nice for many reasons. Matchups like UW, Jund, and Humans you never really know what you will need to answer. Against UW you often need an answer to not only Rest in Peace, but also haymakers like Baneslayer Angel and Monastery Mentor . Jund attacks your graveyard from almost every angle via Nihil Spellbomb, Scavenging Ooze, Leyline, Surgical Extraction, and sometimes extreme cards like Ashiok, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet , or some other nonsense.

These 5 Slots are not really necessary but I think this is the best way to hedge for the meta:

2 Collective Brutality – As said before Basic Mountain decks have the highest potential to punish you for stumbling and this is a great hedge for that matchup.

2 Thoughtseize – Weather or not it’s good people like to play UW and Allosaurus Combo. Thoughtseize is a great anti-nonsense valve and also has lots of equity against Green Tron which can be needed sometimes.

1 Plague Engineer – Just a good card in modern as well as the Mirror. Postboard mirrors are all about landing a Hogaak first. Engineer does a wonderful job of delaying this and in the worst case trading for Hogaak himself in combat.

Conclusion

Never forget that you are the boogeyman of modern and you are the one asking the questions. Goldfish a ton, get used to the sequencing, and enjoy the last tournament of the Hogaak era. You are making history!

Keep Gaaking,

-Cliffy

Revisiting Legacy Storm: Daze

Edit: Before going through this I would like to add that this was written right before Modern Horizons became legal and the meta has become a little less hostile and less focused around WAR haymakers since then. This article was written with a meta of spring 2019 in mind and a few points may be less impactful as of this article’s release in July 2019. That being said, this is still a very comprehensive guide on one of the many options we have in the Dark Ritual world and well worth discovering. Also I would like to credit Kai Sawatari and Jonathan Alexander for originating this plan. Enjoy.

In a format driven by velocity, mana efficiency is at a premium. Almost every viable deck tries to take advantage of card costs in some way, whether it’s through delve, Phyrexian mana, graveyard recursion, or an alternative cost. Following Force of Will and Surgical Extraction, we see Daze as a premier “free” spell in the format. Probably the greatest tempo spell ever printed, the card has proven its strength along side quick clocks and mana denial strategies. Recently banned in Pauper, this powerhouse can and has allowed combo decks with too low of a blue count for Force of Will to interact on an axis they normally cannot. Having a short shelf life however, Daze comes at a cost. War of the Spark has given legacy quite a shake-up, introducing many new problematic cards for combo strategies including Karn, the Great Creator , Narset, Parter of Veils , and Dreadhorde Arcanist , as well as a resurgence in old staples like Chalice of the Void and Counterbalance .

I think our friend from Nemesis may be the answer

What does daze offer to Storm?

Although you can try to play the counter war game, that’s likely not going to earn a slot in the storm box. Much more often than not, storm has no issue dealing with a pile of counter-magic since it is a completely reactive form of interaction and is not really something we need to care about until we want to win. This is something that becomes more and more apparent the more games you play vs blue mages and how sequencing your spells correctly can bait or encourage your opponent to spew their counters where they should not.

Similar to Abrupt Decay , Daze allows storm to play answers to permanent based hate that are generic enough to have text in most matchups. Being a Counterspell, the card has at least a little value across the board. Where Daze shines however is the fact that this is a Zero Mana answer to Chalice of the Void, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben , Counterbalance and others. One of the issues that Abrupt Decay has against taxing permanents is that you normally need to spend a turn or more off to answer it and by this time, there’s a good chance that you’ve lost the window that Decay was supposed to create; They may have played another permanent or two to slow you down or possibly turned off your Ad Nauseam line. If this card still seems out of place to you, let’s look at how Daze lines up against the metagame.

But first, the list:

Sawatari Daze Strom(SDS): By Kai Sawatari

First off, I just want to say that nothing about this list plays out the way you think it does in your head (or at least it did for me). Everything about this list that I wanted to change upon initial glance demonstrated its purpose when I played with it. Many of the concerns that I had ended up not being as big of a deal as I thought they were once I learned how the machine works. As you can see, there are a lot of changes made from the stock list to incorporate the Daze plan. This may seem a little extreme or unnecessary but the gameplan of this list will become more apparent as we look at how this lines up against the field. I am going to group the field into three groups: Combo, Fair-Blue, and Prison. The 2019 meta is much more diverse than this but most decks tend to take the role of one of these three when against ritual-based combo decks.

Daze Storm Vs. The World

How Storm battles Prison Decks and the “No Fear Pivot”

Well normally we don’t, but here’s how we think we do. Game 1 generally is a lot of crossing our fingers, prioritizing discard over cantripping, and playing around as little as possible after the first lock piece comes down. This varies a lot by matchup but generally we are in goldfish mode and make more aggressive decisions with our cantrips. We also lean on poor Ad Nauseam lines over waiting for a deterministic line because passing the turn is more often incorrect when you have the option to not do so.

Postboard games with a stock list are much slower as you board in 6 to 7 bounce or removal spells, diluting your deck on almost every axis. Ad Nauseam gets worse because you have more non-goldfish cards to flip. Past in Flames is more often off the table since most decks in this category run hard graveyard hate like Tormod’s Crypt or Leyline of the Void . Postboard hands missing a Lion’s Eye Diamond can be especially clunky as well. In addition to cutting cantrips, many games can be lost by having a redundant removal spell or simply the inability to punish your prison opponent when they mulligan into the ground and miss.

Introducing the “No Fear Pivot”

The Daze list takes a lot more of a “No Fear” approach against prison. Our game plan here is to cut all discard for Decays, an additional Daze, and extra goldfish cards like Dark Petition or an extra Tendrils of Agony, both of which make our Ad Nauseams much smoother by not requiring a flip of Lion’s Eye Diamond to win that turn. This configuration is surprisingly good at goldfishing on turn 2 or 3 while answering a permanent based piece of hate and avoids most of the issues a stock list runs into postboard. Keeping in all 12 cantrips and boarding up in “business” spells as opposed to down lets us do this much more often than it appears on paper. It’s worth noting that this deck is worse than stock at fighting through an excessive, above average amount of hate. A traditional list having access to Echoing Truth , Chain of Vapor , and Hurkyl’s Recall will provide more resilience, however I have found this plan to be favorable against the vast majority of Ancient Tomb decks since most of the time you face a large pile of taxing artifacts you aren’t winning regardless of what your plan is.

How Storm Beats Other Combo Decks

This is obviously quite a sliding scale but most combo decks in legacy can be grouped into the ones that play Force of Will and the ones that don’t.

Force of Will Combo decks tend to rely on cantrips and blue permission to protect their combo and ensure they live to tell their tale. This category includes decks like Sneak and Show, High Tide, and Infect. Discard has historically beaten countermagic in combo mirrors and that still holds up in 2019. These all tend to favor storm because discard tends to be harder to fight through as a combo deck than countermagic since blue permission is a completely reactive form of interaction and has a much larger mana tax to play it. These matchups tend to involve lots of calculated risk-taking because passing the turn could mean death. That being said, even if they are aware of us playing daze, they probably cannot afford to play around it if it changes their clock. Having both forms of interaction, especially in a game 1, is very strong and will win you games from the inability to play around it. 8 Discard is nice in game 1s here but so is beating your opponent. For these matchups we have the best of both worlds, having up to 6 counterspells and 8 discard spells postboard if we choose so. Speed is almost always the name of the game and playing around cards game 1 although situational is more often incorrect in the blind because of how proactive these decks are.

Non-Force Combo decks in legacy either rely on either efficient discard, a powerful backup plan, a plan that is hard to interact with, or raw speed. This encapsules the Reanimator and Dredge variants, Marit Leige variants, Elves, Storm variants, and others. These matchups tend to have interesting decisions, mostly on how to use your interaction. A common one in discard mirrors, both fair and unfair, is if you spend your interaction on disrupting them or to stop their disruption. Daze tends to not be very useful in these matchups as mana is rarely a bottleneck when players are shredding each others’ hands and players can normally afford the tempo to play around it. The main exception to this is the “raw speed” combo decks, mainly Black Red reanimator. This is an atrocious matchup for storm since they are a turn faster on average and have pregame interaction via Chancellor of the Annex . Daze is an amazing card for this matchup since they are a turn 1 combo deck with little resilience that really does not want to pass the turn.

How Storm Beats Fair-Blue and the “Blue Pivots”

Fair-Blue decks are the largest subgroup of legacy and, in my opinion, the biggest reason to play ANT. On paper, most of these decks look like they crush storm but play out differently when the stars don’t align. Daze is far from an all-star here but we have quite a maniacal plan accounting this. Once again, there is a lot of deviation in these strategies but from the view of a storm pilot, Fair-Blue mostly breaks down into Aggro-Blue, UBx “Strix-Pile” Blue, and “Tundra Blue”.

UBx Blue decks like Grixis Control and Czech Pile tend to be the easiest of these three despite looking like the hardest on paper. I am categorizing this group as “strix-pile” decks from their use of Baleful Strix as a glue. these decks use countermagic, Snapcaster Mage[c] , powerful discard like [c]Thoughtseize and Hymn to Tourach , and a strong Xerox package, which are all powerful, proactive forms of disruption against us. However, the high amount of dead cards and lack of a clock make game 1 a heavy favorite due to the strength of Past in Flames and Ad Nauseam undoing all discard. The fact that most of these decks more often rely on Surgical Extraction over other hate like Nihil Spellbomb both means this is often true postboard. Replacing the Daze package with more action and discard makes this matchup feel quite lopsided even post-board. Although we are not playing it, Empty the Warrens is also an insanely effective card that demands them to find a 2 or 3 of in short time. Often times 6 goblins will either be enough to cross the finish, or put a serious constraint on their cantrips and planeswalkers.

Aggro Blue, which is basically only Delver of Secrets decks in 2019, is a little rougher than the strix blue matchup but has consistently been a good match up throughout history and remains so today. Our gameplan is usually to establish stable mana, play around everything possible, and go off at the last possible second. Absolutely nothing about this is what Daze is trying to do.

Introducing the Semi-Pivot

In this matchup we transform into a Grinding Station-esque list, cutting all the cards with a shelf life for multiple copies of Tendrils, an extra Past in Flames, as well as Carpet of Flowers and more discard. The goal with this is to ignore all soft disruption by invalidating it and win by naturally drawing a copy of tendrils, if not two. That being said, Carpet of Flowers is important too and very much worth fetching into wasteland to play. Without Deathrite Shaman in the format, most Delver decks can’t afford to play at least 2 lands into it. When it’s time to go off, keep in mind that a ritual or discard spell normally provokes a reaction with cards like Spell Pierce and Daze, adding to the storm count. Cantrips can also be saved for storm count on the combo turn once mana is no longer a bottleneck. This plan relies pretty heavily on the fact that these decks do not play discard and have no way to punish you for stockpiling your hand until the last second. That being said, when the plan works, their hand is basically irrelevant. Since you always have inevitability in the match up, it is often worthwhile to take a threat with a turn one Thoughtseize to extend the game.

Tundra Blue breaks down mostly into the Miracles and Stoneblade variants of legacy. Although they function very differently, both play similar forms of interaction and have anemic clocks, so we will group them together. Notably Daze can save us from losing to a Counterbalance on the spot or losing control to an early Jace, the Mind Sculptor , but the card is much worse postboard when both players are constantly passing the turn with mana up. These decks try to hide behind a wall of Snapcaster Mages and Flusterstorms until either a Jace or mediocre creature beats takes the game. Outside of troubling permanents like Counterbalance and Search for Azcanta , the Snap-Fluster interaction can be very hard for a discard-based combo deck to beat if they do not come prepared to face it.

Now is time to introduce the Full Pivot

(Prepare Yourself)

In these matchups we board out dazes as well as the Infernal Tutor-Lion’s Eye Diamond package entirely and bring in basically our entire sideboard. Thirteen cards, all but the 4th Daze and 2nd Dark Petition come in and we are a different deck entirely. This configuration will basically never be able to go off in the first few turns but if the game goes as planned our engine will run almost without a choke point. Going on manual mode means that our discard can basically ignore all spells that aren’t Snapcaster Mage, Surgical Extraction , and Flusterstorm. Sometimes we can even pay for Flusterstorm or fight over them with our own! Abrupt Decay is our greatest utility spell in the match up and a necessity to answer permanents Tundra Mages play like Counterbalance. Keep in mind not to spew these, even when you have multiples; A surgical on Decay into counterbalance is the best line our opponent can take against our plan. Cabal Therapy outperforms other discard spells since it is normally a must-counter, meaning it generates multiple storm; The 3 3 2 split also provides incidental insulation from a proactive Surgical Extraction. Carpet of Flowers either functions as a ritual by changing phases the turn you cast it or gives you the velocity to sculpt your hand while holding up interaction. All in all, we take the control role in the matchup and take advantage of the opponent respecting our explosiveness from game 1. One could think of this as a pump-fake: You keep them waiting on their countermagic for a Tutor or Past in Flames and then you cast 2 Tendrils off 8 mana with a Flusterstorm to fight back.

Why is There No Empty the Warrens?

Empty the Warrens has been the secondary win condition of Storm decks since the card was printed. Serving as a second angle of attack, Empty the Warrens fills a different role in each matchup. As we go through the matchups, keep in mind how our deck pivots postboard in each case.

Against prison decks, Empty serves as a speed option, normally a calculated risk. Most prison decks have an answer to a wide board; Death and Taxes has Batterskull , Eldrazi has Ratchet Bomb, Moon Stompy has Fiery Confluence ; The list goes on and on . When we empty in these matchups, it’s generally in fear of something we cannot or do not want to play through, serving as an alternative of passing the turn. Our “No Fear” pivot is shockingly consistent at casting Ad Nauseam or Past in Flames on turn 2 or 3 through a piece of hate. It is very rare with this configuration that you could tutor for Empty the Warrens and not simply win. In the wise words of Cedric Phillips, “This is the classic plan of Ponder, kill you.”

Against Fair-Blue, Empty the Warrens serves as either a low-resource alternative that plays well through blue interaction or a “gotcha” or “cheese” play when you happen to naturally draw it. Our configuration here, with the exception of the “strix blue” decks, is really set up to play a much more patient game. Since we never really have a lack of resources, we generally don’t need to take on the risks associated with this plan.

Empty the Warrens is still a great storm card. Having the option to go all in with as few as 8 goblins (or less!) when you know the coast is clear is very strong. If there was a 16th slot, Empty the Warrens would be fine to add…but we don’t have that privilege. Empty would just be a little too low impact with this gameplan to warrant a slot. The main appeal that I view from Empty the Warrens is the ability to board into a Blue Pivot vs the Discard “UBx” decks. As the list is, there is too much risk of a discard spell followed with a surgical taking your Tendrils of Agony when you have a full 3 in your deck against any UBx deck. If you were inclined to run one, I would recommend playing it over a Tendrils rather than the Dark Petition since it is not good in combo mirrors.

Conclusion & Sideboard Guide

I cannot stress enough how different this list plays out than one would think it does. A lot of choices may seem suspect, but this is a very well-tuned machine that executes better than theory may suggest. I would highly recommend trying the list card for card before making any changes and having faith in the board plan. Make sure to Join the Ad Nauseam Tendrils Facebook group if you found this interesting and would like to read more on this.

Keep Storming,

Michael Clifford